Hey, teachers! It’s almost the end of the year for most of you and I know you can almost taste the saltiness of the beach air and the sweetness of a piña colada!
The summer is a time when you hopefully get to relax, let loose, and have fun!
But, it’s also a time when you can recharge your teaching passion and fill your teacher cup with new strategies to make next year a bit easier.
So I wanted to let you know about an opportunity to do just that!
Greg and Jason from The Kindergarten Smorgasboard are hosting an amazing virtual teaching conference this summer, ELEVATE 2022.
Read for information on this must-attend event and enter at the bottom of this post for your chance to win a free ticket!

What’s included with the ELEVATE conference ticket?
With your ticket (which you can grab here), you’ll have 90-day access to all of the awesome content below, beginning on June 1st!
Start with these 3 amazing keynote speakers:
- Gerry Brooks
- Mr. D
- Lisa Dunnigan from The Wright Stuff Chics
Then, watch almost 30 sessions, including:
- Writing Workshop
- Science of Reading
- Small-group Reading
- Literacy Centers Management
- Math Centers
- Learning through Play
- Science & Social Studies
- Strategies for Teaching English Language Learners
- Incorporating Songs and Movement
- Using Picture Books Effectively
- Social-Emotional Learning
- Making a Safe Classroom Environment for ALL Students
- and so many more!
Click here for the full list of workshops and presenters.
PLUS, your ticket enters you into giveaways with $10,000 in prizes AND gets you a Certificate for over 30 Contact Hours (check with your district to confirm if it can count for CEUs).
My Presentation: From Pictures to Sentences
Teaching writing in kindergarten and first grade is hard (and can even be downright scary). Many programs push kids to write words, sentences, and stories way too fast, without allowing students to tell their stories and messages through drawing.
I believe it’s important for students to see themselves as writers and know that they have valuable stories and messages to share with their readers.
Over my 17 years of teaching, I learned many strategies to help my emergent writers gain confidence and see themselves as writers no matter which writing stage they’re in. And I’m excited to share my tips and lessons with you in my workshop!
If teaching writing has been a struggle for you, you’re not sure how to start your Writing Workshop, or you’re simply looking for new strategies or lesson ideas to try, then you’ll definitely want to watch my presentation: From Pictures to Sentences.
In it, I guide you through 4 phases to help you launch your Writing Workshop and help take your students from drawing pictures to writing sentences with easy-to-implement lessons and ideas.
I share big ideas, tips, and lessons for each phase. And since I’ve always loved watching other teachers, I also model how I teach some of the lessons for you.
PLUS, I have an extra special free download, exclusively for ELEVATE conference attendees: a 60+page writing pack full of the lessons and resources for the 6 lessons I model in the workshop and bonus pre-writing activities!

Enter to win a free ticket!
We’d love for you to join us at the ELEVATE conference this year! With so many wonderful sessions, you are sure to get tons of “golden nuggets” to add to your teaching toolbox this upcoming year!
Want to be entered to win a free ticket? Just comment below with the topic you’re most excited to learn about and a winner will be chosen by May 30th. Share this post with your teacher friends so they can enter as well!
If you purchase a ticket and win, you’ll get reimbursed so don’t wait, get your ticket now!
Registration ends on May 31st and the fun starts on June 1st. See you soon!
**UPDATE** Thank you for all of your comments! The winner has been chosen and notified. Registration is now closed but we hope you join us at next year’s ELEVATE conference!
I am excited about strategies for writing workshop for my ENL students!
I’d love to learn more about math centers
I am excited to hear about the Science of Reading….or more importantly, more about it.
I am VERY interested in learning more about the Science of Reading and incorporating it into our district ‘s current program.
Science of Reading
I’m excited to learn how to move my students from the drawing picture stage to becoming confident writers who can independently construct their messages.
This is amazing! Thank you for the chance!
My most interesting topic is Science of Reading!!
I would love to know more about the science of reading!
Sounds amazing! So many great topics. I would love to see the Science of Reading and Writing Workshop.
All the sessions look great! I’m very interested in learning through play!
I’d love to get more reading and writing strategies to use one on one and with small groups to help struggling students and students who need more of a challenge.
I’m interested in the small reading group session.
Pick one topic? I’ve heard nothing but wonderful things about this entire workshop, but if I had to choose the one topic that most interests me, I think it would be the science of reading. Thank you for your consideration.
I’ve heard nothing but wonderful things about this entire workshop, but if I had to choose the one topic that most interests me, I think it would be the science of reading. Thank you for your consideration.
Honestly, there are so many great things, it is hard to narrow it down! I think the one I would like to see the most is the science of reading workshop!
I’ excited to learn more about the science of reading.
I’m excited to learn more about writing and phonics!
Hi Brenda!
I’m so excited and anxious to learn all about the Science of Reading, as my school is going to start shifting to this in the fall. So many great topics and speakers for this event!
I am most excited to learn about Science, my kids’ favorite subject and also social-emotional.
It’s so hard to pick but I think math centers is what I am looking forward to most . 😊
This virtual-at-your-own-pace event to ELEVATE my teaching tool box sounds like a perfect opportunity this summer. Going in to my seventh year of teaching elementary students in a Title One school and having just finished my masters degree in positive classroom communities, I would love the chance to reflect and “elevate” for free with advice from the 30 presenters!
I’m most excited about writing workshop – we give so little time to writing in my district, it needs to change!!!
I would love to attend the Elevate conference!!!
Science of reading and small group reading
I am most excited about From Pictures to Sentences: Essential Lessons for Beginning Writers. This was my first year teaching first grade and teaching sentence writing was definitely a challenge.
ooohhhh Early writing lessons is so exciting! I want to improve that area of writing instruction. I’m used to teaching kiddos that already know how to write, so this is exciting!
I’d love to win a free ticket! Fingers crossed!
Science of Reading is a big push right now in my district. Returning for my 3rd year in the classroom I want more research to guide my teaching.
I can’t wait to learn more about the science of reading and how to go from pictures to sentences in writing workshop. The keynotes sound amazing, too. So many great topics!
Your session seems amazing and the freebie looks awesome! I’m also interested in SoR sessions. Can’t wait! 🙂
Thank you, Lorena!
Oh, my! How can I choose? There are so many topics listed that I could use to up my game in–learning through play, science & social studies, making my classroom a safe place,…! I would love to win a ticket!
Yes, SO many great topics. I can’t wait to watch and learn with you!
These all look amazing!!! I’m most excited about the writing topics. This was my fist year teaching (1st grade) and I really feel like I need to make changes on how I go about teaching this next school year. Thank you!
The entire conference looks amazing. I am excited about writing strategies for my early learners as well as social emotional learning (a big need for my most recent classes).
This is a great opportunity. I’m especially excited to get new ideas for writing in the classroom. Thanks.
I am excited to know more about the science of learning and how I can incorporate it into our existing curriculum. I’d also love to learn new strategies for implementing with small reading groups.
I’m most interested in Learning through Play and using Picture Books Effectively!
I am excited to hear and learn more about incorporating social and emotional learning into my class and helping to teach students to deal with these big feelings in a productive and healthy way.
I would like to learn more about science of reading!
Writing! It is the hardest for me to teach.
I would love a chance to win a free ticket to the Elevate conference! I am currently teaching pre-k. I will be starting my 26th year in the Fall. Our school is also looking into starting a pre-k 3 program.
I am looking forward to Writer’s Workshop.
The most exciting thing about the conference is being able to learn new things to do with, help and engage the middle school Life Skills students who struggle with all the basic skills. I also am very interested in SEL.
I would love to win a FREE ticket to hear your session, as well as Lyrics to Literacy
Science of Reading!
I want to learn more about Science of Reading and math centers!
I’m looking forward to learning more ways to incorporate music & movement.
I would love to learn new ideas to help my students grow as writers! I am also interested learning more about the science of reading!!
I want to learn about science of reading!!
I can’t wait to see all the fabulous presenters!! I am so pumped!
I’d love to learn your writing program!
I’m excited to learn about Science of Reading and Learning through play.
I’m fascinated with how writing develops – I teach pre k to k and really want to learn how to best teach the process to grow really great writers 🙂
I would lovle to learn more about implementing systematic and explicit phonics that is engaging and motivating to my Tier 3 students who are struggling in learning the code. Many of these students are MLL students who experienced most of their learning virtually so they did not receive the instruction they deserved.
I am looking forward to learning ways to help my struggling writers so they enjoy writing time and not want to avoid it.